Perhaps Love
by Seanchaidh
Summary: Following on from the first happier ending of Please, Please Don't Leave Me. Abby, Connor and baby Tom have returned to their own time, but will the identity of Tom's father tear Abby and Connor apart? Side-along M-rated fic by Wilemina. Please review.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: As with Please, Please Don't Leave Me, this has spoilers for all of series 3, so if you haven't seen it and you don't want the ending spoiled for you, don't read this.**

**On the other hand, if you are reading this you've probably already read Please, Please Don't Leave Me (if you haven't, go and do so now, because this will completely confuse you otherwise!) and therefore are already fully aware of this.**

**Hope you enjoy it. Do let me know what you think. I'm the worlds greatest cynic and I'm writing something that's actually out-and-out romance, not a rom-com, for once, so you see that tiny dot away over there on the horizon? Yep, that's my comfort zone for writing. Way out of it now. All feedback much appreciated!**

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**Perhaps Love**

**Sequel to Please, Please Don't Leave Me**

**Chapter 1**

It took Abby a week before she could prise Connor away from Tom's room in the medical wing and persuade him to come back to the flat. It wasn't worry for Tom: the baby boy was fit and healthy, just quarantined until they could make sure this immune system hadn't been compromised by his early life in the Cretaceous. It was the fact he hadn't spoken to anyone other than Lester and a few of the medical staff.

Every day, Abby had gone down there to visit her baby and feed him. The medical staff had set up a room just a few doors down with a full sized hospital bed for her to sleep on. She hadn't been back to the flat. Sarah had assured her that her pets were all being well looked after. They didn't need her presence. Tom did. That part of her life was simple. If only she could say the same for the rest of it.

Connor had refused to go home, either to her flat or to Lester's. The nursing staff saw no reason for him to have a room made up in the medical wing. They were trying to persuade him to go home too. Instead, he had stayed. Whenever Abby went to Tom's room, Connor was there, sitting, sleeping or eating in the armchair by the incubator. He never spoke to her, even when she tried to speak to him. He listened to her, at least for a while, but spent most of his time sitting staring at the tiny life in the incubator, deep in thought.

Abby hated it when he was like this. She'd seen him go silent on her twice before: first when the original Tom died, then when Cutter passed away. He had come out of it eventually in both cases, but mostly because he had work to do. Now he had none. In the one month of this timeline that they had been gone, Lester had found a new computer expert and Sarah had taken over use of Connor's database of creatures. It wasn't like they were out of a job: Lester had said they were as much a part of the team as ever, they just had the luxury option of time off for a change now. Sometimes, time off wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

Every day, after feeding Tom, she had tried to talk to him. She had started by pleading with him to talk to her, but that got her nowhere. Then she had tried reminding him of all the time they had spent together in the cave in the Cretaceous. That got closed eyes and a frown. She had moved on to the mundane minutiae of life in the ARC. That didn't get much of a reaction, but nothing at all was better than the look of intense pain that crossed his features every time she tried to talk about something more personal, so she stuck with it.

When the nursing staff told her that Tom was clear to go home and she could start packing up his things, she realised something more drastic had to be done. She must have spent half an hour at least standing outside the door to her son's room, trying to work out what she would say and do. In the end, none of it helped. All of her plans had gone flying out the window as soon she opened the door.

He had been standing there, not sitting in the chair as usual, by the incubator, watching Tom try and catch Connor's much larger hand with his two small, chubby ones. When the tiny fingers finally grabbed hold of something more solid than air, Abby saw a smile flit across Connor's face. She caught her breath, feeling tears threaten at her eyes. What had she done to deserve the love of this man? And how had she so callously managed to throw it away?

She crossed the room in seconds, grabbing his head with both hands and pulling his face down to hers to kiss him. At first he tried to pull away from her, but she wasn't letting go, not this time. If words didn't work, then maybe actions would. Eventually she felt his free arm slide around her waist and took a chance on deepening the kiss, letting one hand slide down to his chest while the other still tangled in his hair.

When they finally broke apart, both breathing heavily, she kept her fingers locked in his hair and his shirt, not wanting to let him slip away from her.

"I love you, Connor Temple," she whispered, her eyes closed and her forehead pressed against his. "Please, please don't leave me. Please come home."

So here they were.

Home.

Abby looked up at the various levels of the flat. Somehow, she had expected something to be different, but it was just the same. The only thing that had changed was her. A chirping echoed from the rafters above her and she looked up to see Rex swooping down towards them. The lizard landed on a nearby table and chirped an enthusiastic greeting, before turning its head on one side and scrutinising the bundle in Abby's arms with interest.

Abby cast a glance at Connor, setting up the second hand pram that they had been given by one of the medical staff at the ARC. In true Connor style, it took him three goes before he managed to secure the simple mechanism of the pram. If it had been more complicated, he'd have managed it in half the time! Abby watched as he placed the baby basket atop the pram mechanism and stood back, hands ready to catch it should it collapse. It didn't. He filled the basket with its mattress and blankets, easing the hood of the basket down and sucking a finger that had got trapped in the catch.

Abby bit her lip and tried not to giggle. They were still on such thin ice that she dreaded anything that might start showing the cracks. Instead, she walked over and placed Tom down in the blankets, trying not to look too much like she was getting ready to catch him should the extra weight cause the aged contraption to collapse. She was just letting out a long breath when Rex fluttered over and landed heavily on the side of the pram, hopping down into the basket and examining Tom more closely. Abby's controlled sigh came out as a gust of air and she watched the mechanism for any signs of movement. None. Good. She felt Connor come up beside her.

"How do we explain to him that he's not a toy?" Connor whispered in her ear.

"Rex or Tom?" Abby replied, watching the lizard duck to avoid Tom's hands.

"Well, both, I suppose," Connor chuckled.

Abby smiled. It was the first time she'd heard any sign of amusement in his voice since he had found out the truth about the identity of Tom's father. She leaned back into him and felt an arm snake round her waist. She wanted to turn round and bury herself in him, never let him go, but she forced herself not to. That would be too much, too soon. If this was going to work, she had to take a step back and let him take things at his own pace.

"I'd better start moving my stuff back up to my room," said Connor, pulling away from her.

Abby sighed and shivered, her back feeling cold now without him there. She hadn't really expected him to come back to her bed that very night, but it was still painful to face the reality of it. Apart from the week in the ARC medical wing, where she could kid herself that everything was normal and fine between them, this would be the first night they had spent apart in a whole year.

She glanced down at the baby basket, still resting securely on the pram mechanism. Both Tom and Rex were now peacefully sleeping, Rex curled up in the blankets by Tom's side. Abby smiled, fished around for a baby monitor in the bag of second hand accoutrements gathered from the ARC medical staff, and Lester. Placing one on the table by the pram, she clipped the other to her belt and headed up the stairs to find Connor. Maybe it wasn't the right time to talk things through, but she had to try. If he didn't want to talk about it, she'd give him space. If he did, on the other hand, she would have to be as brutally honest as she could be. There could be no more secrets between them. Not now.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thank you everyone who has read this and reviewed it or added it to their alerts, especially Gina, whom I can't reply to because she posted the review anonymously. Thanks to Kate, Nicco, Wilemina, an_REG_Omega and Xanthiae. Cookies to all of you. I hope everyone enjoys the next chapter.  
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**Chapter 2**

Connor dumped the holdall on his bed, looking round the room he had left so long ago. It was a weird feeling, almost like he had stepped backwards in his own personal timeline. He closed his eyes and thought back to the last time he had been standing in this room. That was before Jack turned up and started creating havoc. He sighed. Jack's arrival had changed so much it was almost impossible to imagine what life might have been like if he hadn't shown up. On the one hand, he would still have been living here with Abby, the almost disastrous rescue mission through the future anomaly to find her runt of a brother would not have happened and therefore the 'incident' that had led to Tom's birth wouldn't have happened. On the other hand, Rex wouldn't have needed rescuing, he wouldn't have risked his life distracting a predator from Abby, she wouldn't have kissed him and they would probably still be trundling along as 'just friends' and nothing more.

Or maybe she would be with Becker now, not him.

Connor shook his head, banishing the image of Abby and his closest male friend together as an item. He was being irrational. There was no point in going over the various 'what ifs' and 'maybes'. Technically, if Jack hadn't turned up, they might all just as easily be dead by now: wiped out by predators from Johnson's anomaly, or by Helen on her quest to defy Darwin and save the world.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs behind him brought Connor back to the reality he was actually living in and he took a deep breath. He heard Abby walk towards him and stop, hesitant and unsure. He didn't blame her. He wasn't sure of his own emotions right now. He waited in silence, focussing on the holdall in front of him.

"Conn?" Abby's voice trembled. She sounded nervous, scared.

Silence.

"Connor, talk to me, please."

"About what?" Connor sighed.

"About us. About Tom. About anything."

"There's nothing to talk about," he said. "Things just are the way they are and we need to accept that. I need to accept that."

"But I don't know how things are here," Abby persisted. "I don't know what you're thinking or feeling. Talk to me, Connor. Please! Shout at me, call me names, tell me you hate me, anything, just don't shut me out like this."

Connor sighed heavily and looked down at his feet.

"I don't hate you," he said, the words dragging themselves out of him like the confessions of a dying man. "I could never hate you. And I'm not angry with you either. I'm angry with him. I'm hurt. I'm confused. Jealous even. But I'm not angry with you. And I don't hate you. Don't ever think that."

"You should be angry with me," Abby said quietly, stepping closer to him as she spoke. "It was as much my fault as it was his. He didn't know I loved you."

"But he knew that I loved you," Connor cut in quickly. "He knew and he still..."

"Things got out of hand. I could have, should have, stopped it, but I didn't. I just..."

Silence.

"Say it," said Connor, resisting the urge to turn round and face Abby. He needed space and distance right now. If he even looked at her, he was sure that space would disappear. He knew she was hurting right now, just like he was. And maybe getting everything out in the open would help them, like ripping a plaster off a wound. But if he turned around now all he would want to do would be comfort her. Hold her close and tell her everything would be fine. Lie to her and tell her he didn't need to know, to understand. And then the pain would bury itself, burning away deep inside, tainting everything. He needed to know. He just couldn't bring himself to ask.

He heard her step forward again, felt her fingers brush the back of his shirt and draw back. He closed his eyes and swallowed.

"I don't want to hurt you any more than I already have," Abby explained, her voice audibly shaking.

"You can't. Just tell me."

"If I tell you, will you move back into my room?"

"I can't. Not yet. Not the same room where..."

"It's not... We didn't..." Abby paused. He frowned, waiting for her to resume her explanation.

"We never made it that far," she breathed, sounding what? Embarrassed? Ashamed?

"What do you mean?" Connor asked, focussing on a spot on the far wall of the room now.

"Everything just happened so fast," Abby's voice was pleading now, willing him to understand. "We got into an argument. Suddenly we were kissing. Then... Well, you know what happened then."

"But I don't, that's the point," his own voice was shaking now. With what? Fear? Pain? Jealousy? Anger? "I don't know what happened or how, or even when! All I know is that you... That he's Tom's father... That you said my name..."

"I wanted it to be you. I told myself it was you," Abby cut him off. "I needed you and you weren't there. He was. So I pretended he was you."

"So then it's my fault?" Connor frowned. It wasn't an accusation, just a realisation, but he could tell Abby didn't take it that way.

"No, I didn't mean that," she cried. "It's my fault, nobody else's! I was going to call you, go over to Lester's and find you, but I didn't! I stayed home. I chickened out because I was scared. Scared you'd changed your mind. After I kissed you..."

"After?" Connor frowned again. Of course it had been after they kissed. She'd told him that a year ago. Becker had even said so himself. He had gone to apologise for losing his cool when they were trying to rescue Jack. Connor ran a hand through his hair and caught his breath. He hadn't put the two together before. He'd been focussing on the fact that his best friend had tried to steal the woman he loved. The realisation changed things. He wasn't sure why, but it did. A fresh wave of pain made his eyes burn and he dragged his hands down over his face, breathing deeply.

He heard Abby take a deep breath, felt her step closer and wrap her arms around him, resting her head on his back.

"Ask me," she said, her voice almost a whisper. "Ask me and I'll tell you. Whatever you need to know."

Time passed. Tears fell. Words were spoken, details given, cleaning the wounds and leaving them raw and painful, but healing.


	3. Chapter 3

** A/N: Thank you everyone who is reading this, especially Wilemina and Xanthiae who reviewed it: help yourselves to cookies guys!**

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**Chapter 3**

Abby lay curled up on her bed. Alone. She hadn't wanted to leave him. She would have happily spent all night sitting on the chair by his bed, just watching him sleep. Just as long as it meant she was near him. If he'd been angry, she could have dealt with it. Argued it out until they were both exhausted. But he wasn't angry. At least, not that kind of angry. And not with her. Anger she could cope with. Fear, hate, jealousy, frustration: all of these she could cope with. Silence was a different matter. But silence was what she was left with.

He hadn't said a word while she recounted her indiscretion with Becker. He had asked her for every detail and she had told him. He had left a gaping void of silence for her to try and fill with those details. Even after she had finished speaking, when she could feel his silent tears dripping onto her hands, each one cutting through her heart like the strongest acid. Even then he had said nothing. He hadn't asked her to stay or to leave. He hadn't answered her when she asked him to. He'd just shut her out. Completely.

She would have stayed there if she could, waiting patiently for him to let her back in. Into his life and his heart. But deep down she knew she had no right to expect that from him. Not now. She couldn't bring herself to go, but she felt she had no right to stay. She was torn. When the sound of her son's cries crackled through the ageing baby monitor, she had almost sighed in relief.

There had been no major catastrophe downstairs for her to deal with. Rex hadn't woken up and knocked the pram over. An anomaly hadn't opened up in her living room. Special forces weren't trying to break in. There was just a hungry baby boy who needed his nappy changed and a very disgruntled coelurosauravus stuck to wall and watching the wailing bundle with an accusatory glare.

Abby had gone into autopilot. She changed the soiled nappy. She fed her son. She winded him. She put him down to sleep again. She cleaned up the mess. She fed Rex. She put the kettle on. She made two cups of tea. She took them up to Connor's room.

That was when she the autopilot had failed her. Standing on the stairs looking up at the closed door in front of her. The door that had been so rarely closed to her in the past. She had edged closer to it and called through to him. No reply.

"Connor, please! Talk to me!"

Silence.

"Okay, just open the door, then. I made you a cup of tea. It'll go cold."

Nothing.

She was turning away when she heard it: a faint shuffle of feet dragging across the floorboards. She looked back to see the handle of the door move, then stop, then slide back to its original position.

"Conn?"

"Leave it on the step," was the reply. It was muffled, but it was still his voice.

"Okay," Abby called back, hurrying back up the steps to deposit the mug safely on the top step before returning to her previous position on the bottom one.

She watched and waited. He waited a full two minutes before opening the door just wide enough to reach out and pick up the mug. Abby held her breath. It felt as though she was watching some rare creature that would disappear if it knew she was there. The door closed again and she heard him lean back against it and slide down to sit on the floor.

She had spent the next half hour standing there, nursing her cup of tea, watching the door and listening for any sign of movement. Eventually she had heard him get up. The door had opened and the mug replaced. This time, the door hadn't closed immediately. She looked up, seeing him watching her.

"Thanks for the tea," he had said, his voice quiet.

"No probs," she had replied, trying to smile. Such a stupid thing to say, she thought now. Of all the replies she could have picked, that had to be the least relevant. Of course there were problems. Right now it seemed they had nothing but problems. Yet she had said it and he had nodded and started to close the door again.

"Connor," she called up before the door shut her out of his life again.

"What?"

"Tell me what to do. Please. I just... I need to know..." Abby remembered feeling oddly displaced then, hearing her voice as if it was coming from someone else. "Where do we go from here? Are we still together? Do you still want to be with me?"

He hadn't replied immediately and Abby was sure she could feel her heart tearing itself in two. When he did reply, she found herself holding her breath.

"I don't know," he said. "I mean, I do want us to get through this. I do want to be with you. I just have to... I don't know... Process everything. I... It's just... I just need time, Abby. On my own. To think things through."

"Do you still love me?"

"I do," he replied, keeping his eyes on her all the time. "It's just... It hurts."

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

The door had closed then, shutting her out again. She had collected his mug from the top step and taken it back to the kitchen with her own. It was only once the tap was running that she felt the dam burst and the tears start falling. Her tears had mingled with the dishwater as she washed the two mugs, dried them and replaced them in the cupboard. She had looked in on Tom, but he was still sleeping peacefully, Rex curled up at his feet this time. She had resettled ever cushion in the living room, cleaned every surface in the kitchen and bathroom, ran herself a bath and scrubbed the make-up off her face. Anything to take her mind off the loneliness that was now eating her up inside. She picked up her phone and looked at it. She put it back down again. Who would she call? There was nobody left. Stephen was dead. Cutter was dead. Jenny was gone. Sarah and Danny were very definitely on the do not disturb list for now. There was no way she would dare call Lester. She had more or less disowned Jack. None of her old friends had really kept in touch after she had left the zoo. They wouldn't know the half of what was going on anyway and there was no way she could explain it to them. The only person that left was Becker, and that would just be an even greater breach of Connor's trust.

She curled up into a tighter ball on her bed, pulling the thick, fluffy dressing gown around her and ignoring the dampness spreading out from her towel-dried hair. Just over a month ago in this time line, she had been curled up here trying to ignore her brother's snores echoing from the room above and wondering what the little prat had done with Rex. Just over a month ago in her own personal timeline, things had been very different indeed. Now it was almost as if none of that had ever happened, as if it were some bizarre form of dream. As much as she hated the pain she was putting Connor through though, she had a feeling they would both be hurting a lot less if that were truly the case.

She cast her mind back then, back one whole month, the happiest month of her life, wondering how such peace and happiness could end in so much pain.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Sorry for the delay folks: holidays and all that jazz. Thank you everyone who has stuck with the story so far, especially those of you who have reviewed it, added it to your alerts and/or favourites list. It is all much appreciated. I do hope this chapter isn't too much out of character, because it did make me slightly aware of how many psychos I've seen a certain Mr Potts play...**

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**Chapter 4**

Connor lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He wasn't angry with Abby. Well, he was really. A bit. But he didn't hate her. He loved her. That hadn't changed just because she'd made a mistake. A stupid, hurtful mistake. And it wasn't entirely her fault. She hadn't been thinking straight. She hadn't made the first move. He wasn't angry with Abby. Not really. He was angry with Becker.

That was the problem. He always knew that Abby had slept with someone else. Tom's arrival had made that obvious. He wasn't the father, so someone else must be. That hadn't bothered him that much. They were together. She loved him. She'd just slept with some other guy before they got together and now she had the consequences to deal with. Those kind of consequences were enough to deal with on your own, never mind in the middle of the Cretaceous with a stroppy, jealous would-be boyfriend on your hands. He'd done his best to make it as easy to deal with as possible.

But now they were back in their own time, their own flat. Nappies and food were readily available from one of the online supermarkets. The only weapons they needed to carry were their mobile phones. Water, both hot and cold, was on tap for cleaning, washing clothes and even drinking. And, best of all, nothing was trying to eat them whenever they went outside.

She didn't need him any more. Not to be strong for her. Not to provide for her or protect her. She didn't even need him financially any more: the massive, yet secret, compensation payment from the government had made sure of that. And so the stroppiness and the jealousy shone through.

And to make matters worse, it wasn't some random guy that didn't know and he'd never have to meet. It was Becker. His best friend, other than Abby herself. The bloke he had shared his deepest hopes and fears with. The man he trusted to watch his back at work. The soldier who was trained to stay in control at all times. Him. That hurt.

He threw a glance at the clock. It was nearly four in the morning. With any luck, Abby would be asleep. He got up, threw his clothes on the floor and pulled on a dressing gown. He needed a shower.

The shower helped, a little. It washed away some of the grime that they hadn't managed to scrub away in the ARC medical wing. He stood letting the hot water soothe the aches and pains that still lingered after a year of sleeping in a cold, damp cave. Half an hour later he was standing in the kitchen, in fresh, clean clothes, making a cup of tea. His hair was damp and irritatingly long. He would have to get it cut again soon. There were no barbers in the Cretaceous. He ran his hand through it. It would dry soon enough.

Through in the living room area, Tom was sleeping peacefully in his cot. He'd woken up a few hours earlier and Connor had heard Abby lifting him out of the old pram and walking around with him until the cries turned to whimpers and Tom drifted off back to sleep. Rex had given up sleeping in the pram now and returned to his nest, it seemed. One interruption to his sleep he could put up with, but two was just too much for the little lizard.

Connor looked out the window. It was heading for five now and London was starting to wake up. If he left now, he would get there just in time for the shift change. Picking up his jacket, wallet and keys, he headed out the door.

Public transport in London was always an interesting adventure, but at five in the morning it was generally less so. Random people snoozed or daydreamed their way through the bus routes and underground stations, some attempting to disguise this with early morning newspapers. Connor made it across town to the ARC without incident. The guard on the gate checked his pass, hand print and retina scan and let him through. It had been a while, for Connor, since he had found his way through the part of the ARC he was headed for, but asking for directions wasn't exactly part of the plan.

After a few wrong turns, he found the barracks area. The night shift were being debriefed. The morning shift were waiting for their briefing. Connor stepped back and waited.

He flattened himself to the wall as the night shift filed out, to tired and intent on sleep to notice him. The morning shift were being briefed now. Soon, they too would disperse about their duties.

The briefing didn't take long. This time, one or two of the men noticed him and nodded to him on their way out the door. Now the room was empty, save for its sole occupant.

Pushing the door open, Connor walked forward, making a beeline for the captain. Becker was looking at a clipboard, but looked up at the sound of the door swinging shut behind Connor, who had already covered more than half the distance between Becker and the door.

As soon as he caught sight of Connor, Becker's expression changed. He threw the clipboard to one side and looked back, setting his feet apart. He wasn't quick enough to dodge the first punch and he stumbled under the impact. He blocked the second, though, and used the third to twist Connor into an arm lock.

"We've done this already, Temple. I've said I'm sorry. You've punched me. I've apologised again and walked away. I don't want to fight you, but believe me if you throw one more fist in my direction I will knock you flat on your back before you can blink."

"Try it," spat Connor. "It's amazing how fast you get when you've got raptors for neighbours."

"What's this about, Connor? I thought we'd cleared the air between us."

Connor laughed. He really had no idea? Surely not.

"You slept with the woman I love, even though you knew how much I loved her," he said, counting off the points on his fingers. "Even though you knew she was in a mess after what had just happened with her brother, you went round there and made a move on her. You took advantage of her. You got her pregnant and you just let her walk off through an anomaly where the last time she was there, she nearly got killed. You have not once asked if she is okay, after having your baby while stuck in a time full of dinosaurs with no hospital, no midwife, no clean towels and hot water, just me. She had to give me instructions on how to deliver a baby while she was having it! A baby that you haven't even been to see since we got him back to the ARC! You haven't even asked his name! I'm not even sure you realise you have a son! One punch does not make up for that!"

The sudden silence made Connor realise that his voice had risen to a shout.

"Fine," said Becker, through gritted teeth. "You want to try and beat me up? Go for it. I'll try not to break too many of your bones!"

Somewhere at the back of Connor's mind, the little voice of sanity saying "What are you doing? He's a trained soldier. He'll beat you to a bloody pulp," switched off. Connor smiled.

It took the guards five minutes to notice the fight on the monitors, ten minutes of passing the popcorn to realise that their captain was somehow losing, two minutes to get down to the barracks and another ten minutes to break up the fight completely. Unfortunately the only way to do that it seemed, was by knocking Connor out, since every time they thought the had them separated and calmed down, Connor would make another run for Becker and they would end up trading kicks and punches in a heap on the floor again. Eventually Connor was removed, unconscious, to another room, propped up in a chair, handcuffed to it and left to cool down and contemplate the wrath of Sir James Lester.

When Lester arrived, three hours later, Connor had woken up, contemplated his position and gone back to sleep again. Lester looked at him pitifully and emptied a plastic cup of water over his head.

"Wake up, you're going home," Lester drawled wearily. "Danny's on his way in. He'll take you. Once you're home, stay there. You've done quite enough damage to the street cred of my head of military operations for one day. Frankly I'm amazed. It wasn't too long ago that you ranked just a little lower than that bloody lizard of yours in terms of attack capability. Ah well. We live and learn."

"Is that it? No pay cuts? Suspension? I'm not fired?"

"Technically, you're on compassionate leave following a severely traumatic incident at work. You are far too useful to fire and if you've finally worked out how to defend yourself it'll be one less worry for the rest of us. I dare say I'm supposed to tell you off for forgetting we're all on the same side, but having watched the argument before the fight and listened to your point, I find myself siding with the aggressor. That means you. Try not to make a habit of it though, if possible!"

An hour later Connor found himself being propped up against the door frame by a grinning Danny. The grin vanished when the door opened and Connor saw Abby's eyes go wide, her jaw dropping.

"What the hell have you done!"

Connor ignored Abby's cries for information and slipped past her into the flat, listening as she turned the interrogation on Danny, who, it seemed, was more than willing to spill the beans. Connor found his way to the sofa and slumped down onto it. Closing his eyes and hoping Tom wasn't going to pick this moment to start crying. Now that the adrenaline rush had passed, he was starting to ache a bit.

He heard the door shut and Abby's feet approaching. The footsteps paused by the sofa, then moved away towards the kitchen. A moment or so later they were back and he felt Abby's weight join him on the sofa. Everything went still and quiet.

"You didn't have to pick a fight with Becker, you know," she said.

"Yes, I did," he replied, without opening his eyes.

"You're a mess."

"He's worse."

"So I heard."

He felt the weight on the sofa shift, then felt Abby settle herself on his lap, straddling him and pinning him down.

"Whatcha doin'?"

"This might sting a little."

Connor yelped and jumped when the antiseptic hit the first cut. He felt the air leave his lungs as Abby pushed him back down into the sofa.

"You got yourself into this mess and I am not letting those cuts get infected," she said. "It's bad enough having one baby to look after without you too, so just sit there and let me clean these up properly."

"I have a better idea."

Reaching up, he pulled Abby's head down to his, capturing her lips with his own. It was her turn to yelp in surprise. Keeping one hand on the back of Abby's head, he let the other trace a line along her arm until he reached the bottle of antiseptic in her hand. Snapping the plastic lid shut and plucking the bottle from her grasp, he dropped it behind the sofa. Bringing her hand back with his and placing it on his chest, he switched the hand on her head then did the same with the cotton wool in her other hand.

"I give in," murmured Abby, when they finally broke apart for air. "This is definitely a better idea."


	5. Chapter 5

******A/N: Thank you to everyone who has stuck with this story, all the way through from the start of Please, Please Don't Leave Me. This is the last chapter. The story feels like it has come to its natural end and I'm not one for flogging a dead horse so I think I'll quit while I'm ahead and let myself concentrate on other things.**

* * *

**Chapter 5**

It's funny. Sometimes life can play the weirdest tricks on you. You think you're focussed on the right things: career, wages, survival, stability. Then suddenly you step back and take a look and realise that something's missing. Only the thing you thought was missing is right there in front of you, waiting for you to do something about it.

It might be a realisation that creeps up on you slowly, little by little, day by day, giving you time to get used to the idea, try it out a little and see if it works. On the other hand, it might be something that totally blind sides you and hits you like a smack in the face. You feel you really should have seen that one coming, but you didn't and you can't change history. So what can you do? If you can't change the past, can you change the future? Is it worth the risk?

What would you do if one day you realised that those niggling little feelings you've been trying to ignore for so long are real? They're real, they're serious and no amount of ignoring is going to make them go away.

Now if, when it happens, you realise these feelings are directed to someone outside your circle of friends, then you're lucky: you can take a chance and if you're wrong or rejected, well, life goes on. It'll hurt. If it's real, it'll hurt like hell. And maybe there'll be something you can do about it: keep trying somehow.

On the other hand, you might be unlucky. I was. You might find that the person you've suddenly realised you've fallen in love with is important to you in so many other ways too. I did. That makes things more complicated. Believe me. I've been there.

On the one hand you have this ticking time bomb of emotions that you don't know how to control because, if it is real, you've never experienced anything like it in your life before. You feel you have to do something with them or you might just explode, go crazy or both. Not necessarily in that order.

On the other hand you have this person enshrouded in this bubble of importance. Importance to you emotionally because you're friends and you don't want to lose that. Importance to you socially because they're part of your circle of friends, whether at work or as part of your network of family friends, and to upset the balance with one would change things with all of them. At least, some of them. Enough of them.

And that bubble of importance is what's keeping you from talking to this person, telling them exactly how you feel. While it's there, everything goes on as normal. Your friendship is safe within that bubble. The moment you mention love, though, that bubble bursts. As surely as if you had just stuck a pin into an over inflated balloon.

What's left behind could be anything. It could be an argument. It could be an awkward silence. It might be something that you know changes both your lives forever, completely. It might be a promise that nothing will change that you know can't possibly be kept, but you pretend it will because reality hurts too much to deal with right now.

Perhaps I'm being unduly pessimistic. Perhaps the life-changing event is a good one and everyone lives happily ever after. Personally, I don't see it. It didn't work that way with me. I only know one couple who made the transition from friends to lovers and survived the fallout. And they're more likely to be the exception than the rule.

I guess I'm just being cynical. Maybe I'm being a little jealous. Either way I know that, no matter what you say love is, it hurts like hell when it doesn't work out. Yet for some bizarre, masochistic reason, we wouldn't have it any other way. Not one of us. Because sometimes, a memory of love is all we get. And yet that's still better than a whole lifetime of nothing. Sometimes, you have to get your heart broken just to know it's capable of feeling something.

I did.

And that's just something I'm going to have to live with.

Captain Hillary Becker, signing off.

~Fini~

**Perhaps Love** ~ John Denver & Placido Domingo

Words and music by John Denver.

_Perhaps love is like a resting place  
A shelter from the storm  
It exists to give you comfort  
It is there to keep you warm  
And in those times of trouble  
When you are most alone  
The memory of love will bring you home _

_Perhaps love is like a window  
Perhaps an open door  
It invites you to come closer  
It wants to show you more  
And even if you lose yourself  
And don't know what to do  
The memory of love will see you through_

_Oh, love to some is like a cloud  
To some as strong as steel  
For some a way of living  
For some a way to feel  
And some say love is holding on  
And some say letting go  
And some say love is everything  
Some say they don't know_

_Perhaps love is like the ocean  
Full of conflict, full of pain  
Like a fire when it's cold outside  
Or thunder when it rains  
If I should live forever  
And all my dreams come true  
My memories of love will be of you_

_And some say love is holding on  
And some say letting go  
And some say love is everything  
And some say they don't know _

_Perhaps love is like the ocean  
Full of conflict, full of pain  
Like a fire when it's cold outside  
Or thunder when it rains  
If I should live forever  
And all my dreams come true  
My memories of love will be of you_


	6. Series 4

Episode 2 in my Primeval Series 4 is now up!

Look for **Primeval Series 4: Episode 2: He Ain't Heavy**

If you haven't already read the first episode, look for **Primeval Series 4: Episode 1: MIA**


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